The Korean test: instant opinions
You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
One of the biggest problems of journalism is the occasional need to express an instant opinion. The burden falls on leader writers. When there is a genuine specialist around, the editorial tells the reader that something extra and informs him better. But, as usually happens, the paper only has four or five leader writers, what you get is a plain vanilla edit that may as well not have been written for all the analysis it contains.
The North Korean nuclear test provides excellent proof of this. Everyone wrote. They had to. But not everyone said anything that added to the Indian readers` understanding of the subject. The reason: none of them were aware of the dynamics in North Korea, other than what they read from the Western press. The domestic dimension in North Korea, in spite of the fact that since 1974, nuclear testing by the new boys has always been for domestic reasons, was ignored.
The Telegraph went off the deep end and said "only a concert of great powers, driven by a common interest in regional and international stability, can prevent the test from generating arguably the most severe international crises of the post-Cold War era." Unlikely, if you really know the regional dynamics.
The Hindu said that the test formally brought to an "end the grand bargain: that in exchange for Japan and South Korea forswearing their right to nuclear weapons, the U.S. would guarantee their security against nuclear attack by Russia or China." That, too, is now in doubt because it looks as if the bargain will remain. Both Japan and South Korea have said they want it to.
The Pioneer wrote "North Korea poses a threat not only to South Korea and Japan and to the US but to the entire world." But it did not spell out how. The Asian Age said the same thing: " This is all true, and there are no two views that nuclear weapons in the hands of the present regime in North Korea constitute a danger to world peace." For anyone who knows anything about North Korea, and its massive internal weaknesses, this, too, is not entirely correct and certainly no more than so for any nuclear armed country and their neighbours.
The Indian Express wrote "North Korea`s nuclear test changes the global nuclear order and the regional balance in East Asia." The fact, of course, is that North Korea had already changed the balance of power three years ago. It is only now that it tested and made its weaponry known to the world.
The Hindustan Times got it right when it said the real danger from North Korea came not from its potential to attack others but its willingness to sell nuclear weapons technology to anyone who had the money. It needed to carry this point further - give it money and it might stop proliferating - but stopped short.
All papers agreed that the North Korean test posed a problem for India, especially its deal with the US. But they all also agreed that India could somehow sort the problem out. No one said how, though. That left the reader wondering how such an assertion could be made.
What I found most disturbing was the parroting of the Western line about North Korea, namely, that it was a rogue state. The US and the UK that had been invading countries right and left. North Korea`s peculiar history was also not recalled even though there was enough time to acquaint themselves with it. After all, what is Google for?
Everyone also agreed that this was probably the end of the NPT and thus suggested that somehow it was North Korea that was responsible. The fact, of course, is that it was India which ended it in 1998, if not the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1993.
Finally, the Pakistan factor was mentioned by everyone. But no one dared - as if they were all part of the MEA - to blame the real culprit: China.